The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-11-21
THREE AGES OF THANKSGIVING
The Present Cne is Distin guished By
Big Dinners and Noise.
[Copwighted, 1881


fish horn, in masque and trailing gown, he
marches in process sion up and down the side
streets treating the Puritan festival as if it
were no other than an autumn edition OF the
Fourth of July.
Thanksgiving has turned TO dinner and to
noise.
The old time New England Thanksgiving
never existed outside of New England, and
even on its own territory il has passed
through golden and silver age and entered
into one of copper.
How far back one has to look to get a
glimpse of the silver age and even to peep
over the boundaries of the gold depends not
on chronology, but on locality.
1t is curiosity OF America that our date
lines run in zigzags. 1t isn't 1887 over more
than a limited area of country at once.
The resources of civilization" are supposed
to have Strengthened things out and to have
established a certain siInultaneousness of
living; but have seen within six years a
Massachusetts, girl of ~ who could
read Virgil but had never seen
railroad; and there are Northern
New Workers too young to remem-
Der Lincoln's assassination who have seen
nails hammered out one by one by the
village blacksmith, and used wooden pins
in carpentry wherever it was possible to
spare the precious iron
The golden age of Thanksgiving in some
parts of New England is fifty years back
in Others it is ten and fifteen years gone. 1t
depends for the most part on ones grand
father. If he lived to a green old age, he
brought, if not the farm house festival. at
least the village ThankSgiving-a sort Of
silver gilt variety-down almost to date.
Grandsir's house-the children knew him
by no other name--and the houses next 1t
illustrated New England village genealogy.
Up at the head of the street was an open
space. 1t was there, or thereabout, that
the little black cottage had stood in which,
back in the pre- Adamite era according 70
childish reckoning, had lived the primeval
grandmother, of Orange-lrish blood, whose
nurse had hid her in bakers oven when
she was baby over in green Erin and the
Catholic raiders had come down upon the
fold. Her nurse had brought her to England
and there she had found husband, and her
children had lived next door. Their house
was gone, too, and their childrens, but there
were three or four standing yet, cheek by
jowl with one another where GrandSlr'S
father had lived and his father before him.
There was the big-chimneyed old house
where Grandsir lived as young man, when
he turned out the primitive bean pot for the
village ON the potter's wheel. There was the
grand new house, in which, as leather
merchant, with a store in Boston, he was
passing his later years.
All the houses, little and big, were full
when Thanksgiving came around, for every
member of an overlooking family came
home to spend the festival. Uncles and
aunts began to arrive on Monday, and the
flock of cousins kept increasing until
Wednesday night. They took possession of
Grandsir's house, running it over with bub-
ling laughter and merriment, and they
camped down upon Uncle Eben and Uncle
EnOch next door, 1t was a turbulent, I'M
ruly. jolly household that no rules Of law
and order could keep within Bounds.
There was Grandsir himself, stout, white
haired, bushy eye-browed, JUvIai Geneva
lence shining in mis- smile and in every fold
of bis multiplex chin. There was Grandma
straight as an arrow, with too much stern
pride to allow herself to become bent;
slender, bright-eyed and with soft folds of
ripping gray hair combed down over her
ears. There was a wilderness of grown up
folks and little folks all bent on a weeks
revel.
How ao n'e' ' sticky S1y'' the little fingers
got seeding the raisins after even
ing, when all hands turned to
to help in honor of the approaching festi-
val What an orgy of chopping there was
Chopping of apples, chopping of meat, chop
! ping Of raisins, chopping of suet, chopplng
of everything choppable for the all-devouring
mince pies.
The brick oven! One will never forget it.
Disused the year through, it must be
heated once again, preferred over its modern
rivals. for baking the Thanksgiving pies
What a sight it was-the roaring, the curl
ing, the eddying of the living flames in the
black depths. What lot of oven wood it
took to fill it. What fearful joy there was
III feeding the flames.
Grandma lowered proudly over those pies
Waiter load by waiter-load she bore them
triumphantly, fioury apron tiuttermg in the
air. to the big hail closet, a convoy of little
folk eXulting in the trust bearing lesser
loads in her wake. Thirty, forty, fifty,
sixty of them, they were welcome to freeze
solid as rocks the winter thrOugh-such of
them as survived Thanksgiving-having
brief return engagements with the oven on
their way to table.
The joys of that hall closet.
There was the barrel of cranberries, red
and glowing, Il color-feast to the eyes. There
were the turkeys and chickens dozens and
scores of them beyond childish arithmetic
to count, for GrandSir remembered half the
old aunties in the village and every man in
his employ There were the apples, Baldwins,
greetings and Roxbury russets, and there
ready for more pie-were the great milk
pans of squash, floating yellow islands in
seas of milk.
Pumpkins? No. 1t is pumpkin in tradi-
ton and in New York. but in Massachusetts,
home OF tee pumpkins, within the memory
OF the oldest inhabitant it has always been
squash.
| am a veracious chronicler and say,
very emphatically, squash.
1t is curious how much colder it used to be
at Thanksgiving than it is now.
There was always ice on the pond and it
was the big family sleigh that carried Grand
sir and his store OF provisions when be set
ont on his Thanksgiving rounds. 1t was a
treat 90 go with him, for the jingle of old
Spots bells brought dozen rheumatic souls
TO the windows who counted on their
Thanksgiving reminders as confidently as
on the coming of the day.
Thanksgiving morning, when the day did
its duty, was clear and sharp. Grandma
hustled off the "menfolksn and as many Of
the children as could I've bsguiled into going,
to church. The sermon was an excellent
institution to clear the coast for that task of
all tue year. tne making ready the Thanks
giving Dinner. With q big d.
She rose to the occasion and her heart
swelled within her. II was a morning for
anxiety, but anxiety overtopped by pride
The turkey was tremendous responsibility
but the turkey mad met his mach. The
long dining table needed two cloths to cover
it, and it called for nice mental calculation
to decide where each of the multitude of
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